


You'll never see Daylight, If I'm not Strong Enough

by Webtrinsic



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blind Kanan Jarrus, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hera Syndulla Needs A Hug, Hurt Hera Syndulla, Kanan Jarrus Lives, Kanan Jarrus Needs a Hug, Kidnapping, Not Canon Compliant, Parental Hera Syndulla, Pregnancy, Pregnant Hera Syndulla, Protective Kanan Jarrus, Protectiveness, Rescue Missions, Restraints, Reunions, Team as Family, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-26 18:01:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30109887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: Things go differently when Governor Pryce figures out the Twi'lek General in her custody was expecting, a force-sensitive child no less.
Relationships: Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Kudos: 39





	You'll never see Daylight, If I'm not Strong Enough

**Author's Note:**

> y'all really let me watch one episode of bojack horseman and didn't realize id immediately think oooo stealing baby whump
> 
> also sorry jacen u ugly af, so let's hope once u lose that baby fat u'll look more like ur hot jedi father

The news isn’t foreign to her, Kanan had brought it to her attention as soon as he’d felt it. Kanan had been ecstatic, if only for a moment, buzzing under his skin. But it didn’t take long for his brows to scrunch at the complications this brought.

The pair didn’t talk much about their future, Hera dismissing the prospect, not wanting to hear it when her mind could only focus on the present. If she got lost in the clouds she’d make mistakes, and mistakes at war often meant lives.

Lives she didn’t want to be responsible for, especially when it was more than likely those lives would be her family members. Being pregnant and raising a child would be difficult, but if it had to happen, this was probably the best time if this war never did end.

As a general she could still delegate the tasks she couldn’t handle in person, and she wasn’t aging backwards. Hera also couldn’t help but admit once she’d heard the idea of something uniquely hers and Kanan sitting in her belly just waiting to join their family sat warmly in her heart.

All until now, as Governor Pryce looked down at her. Almost staring through her nauseating orange prison suit, as if the blue eyed woman could see the growing child within.

Dread wells up within her as the woman checks the flashing datapad in her hand, whatever that was written lit up her face in piqued curiosity, ”And it is to be assumed this child belongs to the Jedi?”  The word alone sends ice shooting through her veins, the woman’s curiosity making all the more sense as she grips her jaw, forcing her to look her in the eyes.

Hera knows no matter what she says, it wouldn’t be believed, Pryce knows and the twi’lek has never been so afraid of the implications that question and more importantly it’s answer had.

She knew what they did to force sensitive children, slaughtered them or forced them into their ranks. With all the trouble Kanan, her, and their family of Rebels had caused, Hera can’t tell which option they’ll choose, both options were equally as likely.

She doesn’t have to wait for an answer, “For all the Inquisitors you and your scum have cut down, the least you could do is replace one,”

“No,” Hera bit before she could stop herself, not that it mattered, the woman was already tapping away at her datapad looking fairly content.

“You’ll be transferred tomorrow,” Arihnda informed, the information unwelcome. By now her family would be planning a rescue, likely to the wrong facility now that they were transferring her, the situation seemed more and more hopeless as the other woman departed, leaving her strapped to the interrogation table nearly in hysterics.

* * *

Wherever they’ve taken her, she doesn’t recognize it. Not even the stars in the sky above her as two men bruise her biceps with their grip. Leading her down a ramp until she is face to face with the seventh sister's familiar smile.

The yellow woman’s teeth are sharp with amusement as she approaches, the woman invades her personal space, Hera’s struggle immediately is rectified by her captors and the sister laughs when she runs a hand over her abdomen.

“I thought if were to take an apprentice from your ranks It'd be little boy Bridger, but this new little one will do nicely,” Seven waves the men holding the twi’lek off, the cuffs stopping the twi’lek from swinging as she wraps an arm around her shoulder as if they were old friends.

The general snarls but Seven doesn’t pay it any mind, not even as she gives the viridescent womans right lekku a tug in warning. Hera takes in as much of her surrounding area as possible, as the woman continues to assault her with taunts.

“Lucky girl, your Jedi is quite cute. If it’s a boy do you think he’ll take after-” Hera slams her elbow into the monster’s jaw, not regretting it in the slightest. Not even as the stumbling Inquisitor growls, lifting her with the force, eyes pinched as she figured out what to do to the twi’lek that would cause the least harm.

Seven snaps the arm that had struck her before dragging the wincing, thrashing twi’lek to her new room. It’d be a long nine months.

* * *

The rescue is a bust, one that enrages the specters as they come up empty handed. Hera isn’t here, but there is an empty cell that had been assigned to her. Kanan grabs her Kalikori when they leave, upset running along the inside of his skin like ants.

Fire rains upon them and he has no one to hold at a distance for safety, instead Ezra and him push the helicopter back, far away from the gruelling flames as Chopper tries to gain more information on Hera’s whereabouts.

She’d been transferred, to where? There was no information entered at all.

Kanan drops his head into his hands as Sabine flies them back to base, Ezra’s hand on his shoulder does little to help his fear and frustration. The love of his life was force knows where, pregnant with his child, facing force knows what-but he does know what is most likely.

Torture, truth serum, whatever they believed would get them the answers they wanted. It’s then that Sabine says what was making his thoughts spiral into things much worse.

“What will they do when they figure out she’s pregnant?” there’s tears in the Mandalorians eyes that he can feel through the force she is trying desperately not to let fall.

The hand on his shoulder tightens in fear at the thought, and he carefully covers his padawan’s hand with his own. Still offering what comfort he could (Although not with the force. He didn’t trust himself enough at the moment for that.) when he felt as if his world was falling apart because that’s what Hera would do.

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly, trying and failing to run his fingers through his hair now that he’d buzzed the sides. He hadn’t realized that apparently was a tick of his, but his hair would grow back in time, and there were far more pressing things to worry about than his coping mechanisms.

* * *

She’d known for nine long months that it was inevitable, her water would break, she’d give birth, and her child would be taken and trained. Hera doesn’t know what will happen to her when it’s all over. But no matter how much she’d tried to prepare herself, it means nothing as she falls to her knees, hissing through her teeth as her water breaks.

The droid stationed in the corner of her room whirrs to life immediately as it picks up on her distress, it sending the alert to her holders that the moment they’d all been waiting for had finally arrived.

Her door opens with a shuddering hiss, the clatter of footsteps deafening as she’s pulled to her feet. The wincing cry that escapes her lips at the sudden shift has the men maneuvering her adjust, thankfully trying to assist her rather jostle her further.

“My apprentice is here,” the Seventh sister sing-songed, her wrist comm beeping. The sound has her frowning, “A shame I won’t be here to see it,” tsking, the woman sauntered off with one last instruction to her men, “Thrawn wants her alive, she’s still of some use so don’t kill her when it’s over,”

Hera feels a second of relief that the woman won’t be there, that she will be coming out of this alive, so there was some hope of salvaging the situation, taking her child back, escaping.

It was far fetched but she’d faced bigger challenges. These hopes are shaken the second the next door opens, the table and stirrups thick and daunting. She’d imagined she’d be able to hold her Jedi’s hand, not have hers strapped beside her head.

The men don’t touch her legs and they leave once the cold medical droids enter. Hera had found in the past that changing the design would truly benefit those in their care, and it’s a repeated thought then as one strips her legs and situates her into the stirrups.

The other droid pulls a privacy curtain across her chest, cutting off her view completely. They won’t let her see her child and that painful reality pushes the tears from her eyes as she unknowingly mimicked the breathing one of the droids was imitating for her to follow.

If her child was simply going to become a monstrous slave to the empire, she wished she wasn’t having them at all. Regret loomed overhead, there was no way out, any hope she had was lost.

Hera was having a child and yet it wouldn’t be hers, she was entirely alone, somewhere her Jedi couldn’t find her. Then she’d be moved again, back into Thrawn’s clutches where it sometimes feels as if she’d always been.

She longs for Kanan but even this seems out of his abilities. She can’t even hope she’s wrong.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, tears leaking excessively as her failure settled in. Maybe the baby will forgive her someday, maybe if she’s still alive they’ll cut her down themselves, Hera wouldn’t blame them either-in fact she’s sure she deserved it.

A mother who could not protect her child, not even from the start. The despondency lingers, she’s sure it would never go away.

* * *

They’re on the way to where they hope they are keeping her, it was the last place on their shotty list and their supposed time was running out. They had no clue if the animals had decided to let Hera bring the child to term, no clue if she was even alive because the reassignment tag in her file had yet to be filled in or even edited.

Nine months on their own, without their captain, and there was an unspoken fear sitting within them all. If Hera wasn’t there...Kanan didn’t want to think about it any longer. He couldn’t.

“We have another two days till we get there, it’s too risky to make a jump or do much of anything,” Sabine informs, her fingers twitching with the need to act. Her restlessness is shared between them all. Zebs tapping foot fills the air, and Ezra's grip on the railing beside him is tight enough there is some fear the piece may actually bend or his bones will break.

Kanan doesn’t have the heart to tell him to let go, it wouldn’t be fair too, not when he couldn’t even unclench his own teeth.

Especially when a wave, something in the force, or maybe his own intuition screamed: his unseeing eyes opened comically wide under his mask. He didn’t know how he knew, but he was sure his child had been born.

* * *

Sweat trickles down her brow, breaths shuttering as her body attempted to move forward. Small cries that she knew belong to her child echoed in her ear cones as the restraints effectively kept her down.

Lifting her head doesn’t bring her any results either, “Please,” she croaks. But the droids ignore her as they cut the cord and swaddle the child, “Let me hold them,” she requests.

“A boy, vitals are all healthy,” one droid advises the other.

“Let me hold him,” Hera request again, breaths stuttering through her tears as she tries to pull herself up again, more and more desperate, “Please give me my baby,”

She needs to hold him, needs too before what’s left of her heart falls from her chest, “Please,” bruises are forming at every point of contact that are keeping her down, the table clattering and the child’s cries only grow with her distress, “I need to hold him,”

“Give me my baby!” The twi’lek screams, her heart jumping at the hiss of the door and the rolling of wheels. They were taking him away already.

“No!” The cry comes from deep within her chest, and her screams are never ceasing as her fatigued body grows more and more labored. At some point there are no words to the sounds she’s projecting, her throat garroted, the skin on her legs, ankles, and wrist breaking.

She doesn’t stop struggling, not with the hysteria she’d found herself in until her body gives out completely. Unconscious, but Hera would have preferred something more permanent if it meant she didn’t have to feel this heartbreak any longer.

* * *

The droids return without the child, it ultimately does not matter because the twi’lek was limp and pliable, easy to tend to as they helped clean and redress her. Bandaging her wounds with some bacta soaked gauze before bringing her back to her room.

Her blanket isn’t enough to chase the cold feeling in her chest. Any moment she wasn’t under the throes of fatigue tears slipped down the side of her listless eyes. Unmoving, and uncaring of whatever was to come next, not when her future had been so clearly taken from her.

She had no resistance to offer as the droids returned with an IV, the buckets of bolts tied her to the headboard so she wouldn’t try to harm herself with the needle or rod but Hera’s too lost to even do that.

“My baby,” the woman hums so lightly the droids miss the request entirely, not that they would have listened at all.

* * *

For a place supposed to house Inquisitors, there were none present at all. But when Kanan and Ezra reach out through the force for any sign of monsters they missed, there is only one force sensitive signature to be found. 

A small one, one Ezra immediately recognized held some pieces of his masters' own. Kanan seemingly senses it as well if the way his eyebrows raised and his signature warbled meant anything. Sabine looks between the two of them, Zeb speaking where she would not.

“So do you sense her?” they sensed them both really, Hera being harder to recognize due to fatigue and emotional turmoil(?). But her dread was overwhelming once they realized what it was. Kanan is moving before he realizes, it’s a hard call to make but one he has too.

“Sabine, Ezra, I need you to get the baby while I get Hera. Zeb you stay with Chopper on the ship,” they all nod in agreement, moving to their stations. Ezra and Kanan cut through every droid that has the misfortune to come across their path and Sabine shoots just as many as they break with their sabers.

Kanan gives both his children’s shoulders a squeeze before they part ways, and the Jedi sprints the rest of the way, with a flick of his fingers the door slides open and the love of his life awaits him.

He’s beside her in moments, hands framing her slack face. She’s cold, inside and out, and it takes him a second to utilize the force and free her from her bindings. Guilt eats at his chest at the broken feelings settled within her, he should have been there, should have found her sooner: she shouldn’t have given birth to their child alone in this horrid place.

He _hates_ the empire, those despicable monsters that had stolen her from him. Broken her so effectively that he could feel not only her fatigue was keeping her down but her impacted psyche as well.

The IV slides out of her thigh easily, and she slides into his arms just as smoothly. Body not even reacting as her head slumped against his collarbone. He’s quiet as he makes his retreat, head angled towards her own as if he stared hard enough his eyes would really see her, even through his mask.

The kids are in the hall, a bundle wrapped in Sabine’s arms, specter seven. His new child, breathing softly against his older sister's armor.

“He won’t ever have to dye his hair,” Sabine smiles lightly, it not reaching her eyes as she stares at her unconscious captain.

“The tips of his ears either,” Ezra pointed out, and Kanan found his nostrils flair in an amused huff, instinctually holding Hera tighter to him. 

“Green like Hera?” it comes out softly, and the kids are quick to pick up their pace figuring Kanan should hold his child, soon.

“A little darker but the tips of his ears are pretty close to the same color,” Sabine explains, and Ezra is quick to pipe up.

“Like my saber!”

Kanan shakes his head fondly, his lips brushing against Hera’s head before he plants them firmly down. The fist that had been clenching his heart these nine long months losing grip.

* * *

Hera wakes up all at once, nearly shooting out of bed in panic. She nearly startles Kanan straight off the hospital bed from where he was resting his eyes beside her, the twi’lek is panicking immediately.

They’d only talked about baby names once, and they hadn’t exactly made a decision then but there'd been a name the pair had liked if they so happened to have a boy, it’s shrill from her mouth now, “Jacen.”

Tears are breaking down her face immediately, and her head is moving quickly enough to nearly fall from her shoulders as she looks for her child.

“Hera,” Kanan cautions, wrapping his arms around her before she nearly falls from the bed, her panic is gut wrenching, especially as she quickly falls against his shoulder, screaming through her sobs. Very clearly under the belief their child was gone and not in the bassinet behind him that she’d missed.

“Hey, hey. He’s okay. Hera,” he places kisses almost frantically against her forehead as she shudders, looking up at him with so much disbelief in her signature he’s almost glad he’s blind because he wouldn’t be able to stand the likely matching expression on her face.

She’s still nowhere near as calm as he’d like, and there’s only one thing he knew to do that would hopefully rectify that. He doesn’t want to let her go but he needs both hands to scoop Jacen from his crib.  The way her breath catches in her throat at the sight of their child is as heartwarming as it is infuriating. 

“They didn’t let me hold him, I didn’t even get to see him,” Hera admits brokenly through her tears as he slides the bundle into her arms, her forehead falling tentatively against the sleeping babies own, her chest hammering with affection.

The admission kills him, a snarl held carefully in his throat as he stiffly takes a seat, protectively wrapping his little green pair into his arms.

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes and it falls on deaf ears as Hera basks in the moment, her child safe in her and his fathers arms. Wiping away her tears so as not to let them fall on the sleeping baby, a laugh bubbled in her throat as she buried her face against her Jedi’s jaw, more relieved than ever.

“I love you,” she should have said it sooner, but it’s in the air now and his answering squeeze is welcome.

“I love you too,”

* * *

The three of them are hesitant to hand the disk over, and Kanan doesn’t understand why until he realizes just where it came from. Hera and Jacen are resting in Hera’s cabin, but even still for privacy Kanan heads with Chopper to his old room. The one that would soon belong to little Jacen.

When Chopper plays the tape-in a rather low setting, Kanan knows exactly why the crew had been so hesitant to hand it over. It was the memory from one of the droids that’d assisted in Jacen’s delivery. It was nothing but audio, but he and anyone really could imagine the scene vividly regardless, so much so he had to stop and breathe lest he tip and fall.

She’d told him already that they hadn’t let her hold him, that they hadn’t let her even see him, but hearing _Hera_ scream in despair and his child cry in turn...it was vile.

_ “I need to hold him,” _ sent shivers down his spine and he could see why she’d been desperate to hold Jacen upon her wakening. He was going to make the Empire pay, and as he stepped back out into the hall, his crew held the air with a similar sentiment.

This war needed to end for all of their sakes.

**Author's Note:**

> Snap: allisonw1122  
> Tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> Insta:Webtrinsic


End file.
